Middle class laboring in job hunt

They arrived in nice cars from comfortable homes, a diverse group of 40- and 50-somethings who have run factories, rolled out telephone networks and managed mass layoffs.

They all share one thing in common: None has a job. Most have families, and many have been out of work for more than a year.

They met on a recent Monday morning in Naperville, not to commiserate but to brainstorm about working together to market themselves to employers.

The room crackled with a high-octane mix of hope and frustration.

"Somebody's got to be bold enough to take the first step and start hiring again," said Richard Karbarz, a senior project manager laid off from Tellabs Inc. in January.

In fact, hiring is not expected to pick up before the middle of next year.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of displaced managers and professionals are looking for work in an environment that is tougher than during the 1990-1992 recession.

People are running out of unemployment benefits sooner than they did during the early 1990s, according to labor experts. They are also facing a sharp sense of isolation in an economy where the working mainstream continues to thrive, splurging on zero-financed cars and bargain vacations.

This new wave of middle-class jobless--more focused and pragmatic than their predecessors of the early 1990s--is straining the resources of non-profit centers that sprang up more than a decade ago during what was dubbed the nation's first white-collar recession.

Instead of vanishing during good times, these centers became permanent fixtures, providing services in a churning global economy where layoffs are a constant.

"Even during the roaring mid-1990s we were seeing 500 to 600 people a year," says retired executive Sam Beacham, a volunteer at 12-year-old Lake Forest Career Resource Center.

These are far from good times.

Job counseling centers from west suburban Lisle to the Loop report seeing double and triple the numbers they served before the official start of the recession in March 2001.

Since unemployment typically doesn't peak for months after a recession ends, the influx is not likely to ebb soon.

Networking groups and the euphemistic "job clubs" are proliferating in churches, libraries and suburban business parks. With job searches stretching longer, it is not uncommon for people to make the rounds of more than one.

For some suburban job-hunters, the week starts Monday mornings at LDS Employment Resource Services in Naperville. On Tuesdays, it's the Barrington Career Center; Thursdays, Schaumburg Public Library; Saturdays, Holy Family Catholic Church in Inverness.

Larry Arquilla, a 48-year-old plant manager, has visited them all since he got laid off in July. "You sit in front of your computer all day and you go bananas ," he said.

Tom Foss is another regular. The 49-year-old father of two, an honors engineering grad with three master's degrees, including a master's in business adminstration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, worked 17 years at Lucent Technologies Inc. and its predecessor, AT&T Corp. He won recognition while managing projects such as one to deploy DSL networks in Southeast Asia.

Then came the layoffs, wave after wave. He took a buyout in July 2001, thinking it was a smart decision. He expected to be back at work within six months. Instead, it's tough getting interviews. His last one was in September.

This latest wave of jobless middle and upper-level managers is entrepreneurial.

Support groups are more task-oriented and less confessional than during the previous recession, when midcareer executives were shocked and embarrassed to be hunting work for their first time since college.

"Then, it was a source of shame," said Sharon Worlton, who has managed the LDS office with Sally Morrison for 15 years. "Now, they just want to fix it and move on."

But fixes are not coming fast.

It is taking longer to find jobs, counselors confirm. Interviews are harder to get. With so many applicants to choose from, companies are searching for an elusive perfect fit, or are letting jobs go unfilled for fear of hiring before the recovery takes hold.

Meanwhile, layoffs continue, and not just at deeply troubled companies such as United Airlines' parent UAL Corp. Profitable companies are outsourcing jobs and restructuring to preserve shrinking margins.

Illinois' unemployment rate of 6.7 percent in October was third-highest in the country, a full percentage point above the national 5.7 percent average.

The rate is still low compared with previous recessions--unemployment hit 7.8 percent in 1992 and 10.8 percent in 1983--but there is a troubling trend.

Benefits expiring

The numbers of jobless running out of benefits before they find work is higher than during the last recession, according to the non-profit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C. These long-term unemployed workers are not counted in the monthly rate.

Illinois is among the hardest-hit, scoring fifth-highest at the end of July in the number of workers who had exhausted federal unemployment benefits that kick in for as long as 26 weeks after state unemployment runs out.

During the early 1990s recession, the nation's total unemployed--including the workers who exhausted their benefits-- did not peak until 15 months after the recession ended. And the rate did not decline to prerecession levels until the end of 1994, three years and nine months after the recession's end, according to CBPP.

None of this is news to the people who run job centers. They are seeing more people dropping by to use computers equipped with high-speed Internet access to research jobs.

Canceling DSL

"The DSL line is one of the first things people have to cut" when money gets tight, said Jane Laystrom, Barrington Career Center's executive director.

Two years ago, no more than a dozen people showed up for Barrington's Tuesday morning networking group.

One unemployed manager took a job as a caddy at an upscale golf club, figuring anybody who could afford membership there likely could help him find work.

Some find success by persuading employers to create positions for them.

"Of 22 people who got hired last month, 17 were jobs that didn't exist," said Joy Dooley, director of adult services for Lisle Township. "The hardest part is perseverance."

Then, too, it's not easy to stay upbeat in an economy where the mainstream is thriving even while unemployment is rising.

Rather than feeling pinched by the downturn, people who kept their jobs through the recession have fared relatively well, thanks to a combination of low inflation and salary increases.

The contrast is sharp in communities such as Schaumburg, where 25 job-hunters gathered on a recent Thursday morning. They met in a second-floor conference room at the public library, a showcase community center where nothing suggests hard times.

Yet inside their meeting room job-hunters shared tips about how to save money by combining a one-day CTA pass with hotel shuttles to get downtown. There was talk about starting a bartering network.

"It's like circling the wagons in the old days," the group's facilitator said. "We're in foreign territory and we have to rely on each other."

The weekly club, started last year by former Motorola Inc. employees, draws people laid off from such diverse companies as Kodak, Sears, Kmart, McDonald's and Xerox.

A strong sense of camaraderie keeps some coming back, even after they have found work.

It's not uncommon to find job club members working at Home Depot or Best Buy. Others work as substitute teachers.

Foss, the former Lucent project manager, makes $100 a day twice a week substituting at local junior high schools while continuing his search.

One of his least favorite tasks is making cold calls--they haven't paid off. Nonetheless, he's stepping them up.

"The first of the year is a big hiring time," he said, "so you have to start planting those seeds now."